In enzyme catalysis, where exquisitely positioned functionality is the sine qua non, atomic coordinates for a Michaelis complex can provide powerful insights into activation of the substrate. We focus here on the initial proton transfer of the isomerization reaction catalyzed by triosephosphate isomerase and present the crystal structure of its Michaelis complex with the substrate dihydroxyacetone phosphate at near-atomic resolution. The active site is highly compact, with unusually short and bifurcated hydrogen bonds for both catalytic Glu-165 and His-95 residues. The carboxylate oxygen of the catalytic base Glu-165 is positioned in an unprecedented close interaction with the ketone and the ␣-hydroxy carbons of the substrate (C. . . O Ϸ 3.0 Å), which is optimal for the proton transfer involving these centers. The electrophile that polarizes the substrate, His-95, has close contacts to the substrate's O1 and O2 (N. . . O < 3.0 and 2.6 Å, respectively). The substrate is conformationally relaxed in the Michaelis complex: the phosphate group is out of the plane of the ketone group, and the hydroxy and ketone oxygen atoms are not in the cisoid configuration. The ammonium group of the electrophilic Lys-12 is within hydrogen-bonding distance of the substrate's ketone oxygen, the bridging oxygen, and a terminal phosphate's oxygen, suggesting a role for this residue in both catalysis and in controlling the flexibility of active-site loop.T riosephosphate isomerase (TIM) catalyzes the isomerization between dihydroxyacetone phosphate (DHAP) and D-glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (GAP). The uphill direction from DHAP to GAP is essential for optimal throughput in the glycolytic pathway. To accomplish this reaction, TIM extracts the pro-R hydrogen from the C1 carbon of DHAP and then stereo-specifically introduces a proton to the C2 carbon ( Fig. 1 a and b; ref. 1). Kinetic isotope effects and isotope ''washout'' experiments suggest that the reaction proceeds through a planar cis-enediol or enediolate intermediate of moderate stability (2, 3), and that the energetic landscape is characterized by several steps of competitive timescales (4). The crucial proton transfers between C1 and C2 atoms of the substrate are most likely carried out by a single base, the side chain carboxylate of Glu-165, whereas His-95 and Lys-12 probably facilitate the transfer of the hydroxyl proton from O1 to O2 (Fig. 1a; ref. 5). Structural studies revealed an ␣͞ fold, now known as the TIM-barrel (6-8), and elucidated the geometry of the catalytic residues at the active site and their interactions with the ligands (9).TIM is a textbook case in enzymatic enolization chemistry and has become the subject of landmark spectroscopic and computational studies elucidating the details of the mechanism, the protein motions relevant to chemistry, and the design principles that allow efficient and uphill proton transfer in enzyme active sites. Spectroscopic and mutation studies have focused on the polarization of the substrate by catalytic residues as well as on the...
As for many enzymes, the enzymatic pathway of triosephosphate isomerase (TIM) includes the partially rate determining motion of an active site loop (loop 6, residues 166-176), which must remain closed during chemistry but must open just before product release. The motion of this loop was monitored using laser induced temperature-jump relaxation spectroscopy at nanosecond to millisecond time resolution. Trp168 in the hinge of the mobile loop served as a fluorophore reporter in a mutant of the yeast enzyme. The opening rate was studied as a function of the concentration of glycerol 3-phosphate, a substrate surrogate. Monoexponential kinetics were observed; assuming a simple two-step ligand release mechanism involving an encounter complex intermediate, the time scales of loop opening and closing were derived. The opening rate of the loop at 25 degrees C was determined to be 2500 +/- 1000 s(-1), in remarkable agreement with solution and solid state NMR measurements. The closing rate at the same temperature was 46,700 +/- 1800 s(-1). The rates were also studied as a function of the sample temperature following the jump. Enthalpies of activation of the loop motion, DeltaH(close) and DeltaH(open), were estimated to be 13.8 and 14.1 kcal/mol, respectively. The enthalpy of dissociation estimated from the kinetic studies is in reasonable agreement with steady-state values. Moreover, the enthalpy was dissected, for the first time, into components associated with ion binding and with protein conformational change. The enthalpy of the release reaction appeared to have a substantial contribution from the dissociation of the ligand from the encounter complex, found to be endothermic at 6 kcal/mol. In contrast, the population ratio of the open to closed loop conformations is found to favor the closed conformation but to be substantially less temperature dependent than the release step. Preliminary data of other ligands show that G3P behavior resembles that of the substrate but differs from 2-phosphoglycolate, a tight binding inhibitor, and phosphate. This study represents one of the first detailed comparisons between NMR and fluorescence based probes of protein motion and results in good agreement between the methods. The data in aggregate support a model in which the rate of the loop opening for TIM is dependent on the ligand and results in opening rates in the presence of the product that are comparable to enzymatic throughput, kcat.
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